Pins & Needles
by V. lagopus
Summary: Sherlock is at university studying chemistry. He's also earning a reputation as something of a private detective. Unfortunately, he's indulging his escalating drug habit as well. The beautiful young woman who makes his deliveries piques his interest but she doesn't like to mix business and pleasure. And neither does her domineering boss, an ambitious thug with a case of paranoia.
1. One: Sherlock

One: Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes pulled open the door to his room and found himself face to face with a familiar tall, slender figure attired in black leather motorcycle gear. The figure did not speak and made no move to remove her helmet or push up the heavily tinted visor, she simply waited. Sherlock pulled a wad of cash out of his dressing gown pocket and held it up. The figure grabbed the cash, unzipped her jacket a bit, and stuffed it into a concealed inner compartment. She then pulled out a small, flat box and handed it to Sherlock. Sherlock nodded his thanks. The figure zipped up her jacket in one fluid motion and walked away, disappearing around the corner at the end of the corridor. Sherlock closed the door and hurried to the window. He watched the dark figure cross the pavement, climb atop a black racing style motorbike, and speed away into the night. He knew that he'd seen the motorbike and its rider before, outside of their regular biweekly exchange, and it annoyed him that he couldn't place them. Finally he sat down on his bed and turned his attention to the box and its contents, ampoules of morphine and a sachet of cocaine. He pulled out a clean syringe and prepared a dose of the morphine. Using his teeth to pull the rubber tourniquet tight around his biceps, he tapped with two stiff fingers at the pale flesh of his forearm, and then stuck in the needle. It wasn't long before he was sprawled out on his bed, still clutching the needle in one hand, the problem of the motorcyclist's identity forgotten along with everything else.

A couple of days later, once he had recovered from his post-exam, weekend morphine binge, Sherlock took up the cocaine and his violin. The other young men living in residence took exception to his boisterous playing at all hours of the day and night and so Sherlock was forced from his own room into one of the practice spaces on campus. He played for hours until his fingers were sore, until he was sweating, until the initial cocaine high diminished and he needed a cigarette. He packed up his violin, shrugged on his long overcoat, and made for the exit. He passed the other rooms and automatically took note of the practising musicians; a string quartet, a cellist, another violinist, and a pianist. As he walked past the pianist something clicked in his brain and he stopped abruptly. He slowly took a step back and peered inquisitively into the room. A black leather motorcycle jacket was slung over a chair and in the seat was a shining black helmet with a full visor. His curiosity piqued, he turned his attention to the musician. She had pale skin and white-blond hair that was twisted on top of her head in a messy bun. Sherlock had been watching her for only a few seconds when she suddenly stopped playing, looked up from the piano, and locked eyes with him. Sherlock's breath caught in his throat. He bolted out the door, lit a cigarette, and waited for her to appear. A moment later she stepped outside with her jacket zipped up to the top and her helmet under her arm. She glared at Sherlock as she walked past him and then threw one last furtive glance over her shoulder. She had the palest grey eyes he'd ever seen, so light in fact that from a distance they seemed almost devoid of colour except for the large, black pupils at their centre. Soon after she was riding away on her motorbike and Sherlock was memorising her face.

Several weeks passed before he saw her again. Her role as courier had temporarily been filled by one of her peers and he made a point of telling Sherlock how much he disliked going out of his way. When Sherlock asked about the girl he was told to keep his mouth shut and mind his own business. He was also instructed to come to a certain club and pick up his next package, a directive with which Sherlock complied against his better judgement. He intended for the transaction to be a brief affair but as he made his way up the dark stairs to a private office overlooking the club, _she_ came down. She looked him dead in the eye with her icy gaze and brushed against him as she passed him on the narrow stairway. Sherlock paused and watched her descend until she disappeared into the crowd before continuing up and knocking on the door marked _"no entry"_. Inside the office he was met by Roman, the man at the top, and his silent bodyguard. Roman snorted a line of cocaine and rubbed the remaining grains over his gums. Sherlock reflexively licked his lips.

"You're some kind of private detective," Roman stated flatly, motioning for Sherlock to sit down. "And sometimes you work with the police."

"Yes," said Sherlock.

"Is that something I should be concerned about?" he asked sternly.

"No," said Sherlock.

"Is there any particular reason you're interested in one of my couriers?" Roman probed further.

"Which one?" Sherlock asked sardonically.

"Don't play games with me," Roman hissed.

"I don't play games," Sherlock started to say until Roman cut him off mid-sentence by slamming his hands down on the desk. He glowered at Sherlock but said nothing. Finally Sherlock offered an answer that he thought would adequately explain his curiosity. "She's very pretty. Maybe I like her." Roman leaned back in his chair, a smirk upon his lips, his fingers steepled together thoughtfully.

"I doubt that very much. Rumour has it that you don't enjoy the company of women. Regardless, she asked me to give you to somebody else so I guess _she _doesn't like _you_," Roman sneered, and then pulled out a vial and syringe. "This is my own concoction," Roman explained as he prepared a dose. He offered the syringe to Sherlock.

"I'd rather not," Sherlock tried to decline.

"I insist," Roman was adamant. The bodyguard flexed his fingers together menacingly. Sherlock considered his options. _What sort of test is this?_ Finally he acquiesced, used his belt as a makeshift tourniquet, and took the syringe in hand. The needle went in expertly and as soon as he depressed the plunger a wave of euphoria washed over him. This mixture was much more potent than any combination of morphine and cocaine that Sherlock had ever put together. Sherlock suspected that if he hadn't already built up a tolerance to opiates and other narcotics the injection might have killed him outright. He slumped breathlessly into the chair but was abruptly hauled to his feet by the bodyguard who tucked a familiar flat package into his coat pocket and shoved him out the door. Sherlock was halfway down the stairs before it occurred to him that he hadn't paid for the goods. He tried to turn around but instead he stumbled down the stairs and landed in a sweaty heap at the bottom.

"Sherlock Holmes," a husky voice intoned from the shadows, and then _she_ appeared above him. Stars swirled in front of his eyes and the light seemed to fade until he lost consciousness altogether. The last thing he remembered was the feeling of her cold hand pressed gently against his cheek.


	2. Two: The Courier and the Sargeant

Two: The Courier and the Sergeant

She sat at the open window, cold night air filling the room around her, and watched the stars as they winked almost imperceptibly in the vast black sky overhead. Sherlock's relaxed breathing let her know he was still among the living. She glanced over at him, his naked body lying face down on his bed covered by a single sweat soaked sheet, and she frowned. It had been a struggle to get him here.

She had dragged him out of the club and, with considerable effort, managed to sit him upright on the back of her motorbike. He had clung tightly to her during the ride, mumbling incoherently in her ear and prickling her neck with his breath. When they finally reached his residence he fell right off the bike and scraped his cheek on the pavement.

She fireman carried him up the stairs, down the hall into the empty shower room, and dumped him unceremoniously on the tile floor. She stripped off his clothes, though he tried vainly to resist, and soon he was naked with cold water pelting him from the showerhead above. Sherlock shivered and tried to growl in protest but he could barely produce a whimper. She had then dragged him to his room and pulled the covers off his bed before laying him down on the bare mattress. She covered him thoughtlessly with a sheet and set to work.

A quick rummage through his things revealed a veritable pharmacy in his cupboards. He winced and mewled when she stuck the first needle in his arm, diazepam and paracetamol to negate the cocaine high and fever, but soon he was quiet and still. Sweat seeped out of him and made the thin white sheet stick to his skin. His temperature seemed to be dropping though; every time she pressed her hands to his cheeks and his forehead he felt cooler than the time before.

She sat by the window for hours, peering out into the night and listening to Sherlock Holmes breathe. When she couldn't hear him anymore she kneeled by the bed and pressed her hands to his face once more. He felt cool and clammy. She covered his wrist with two fingers and found his pulse; it was slow and thready. He was breathing but only barely. She knew it was time. She loaded another syringe and administered a dose of naloxone with steady hands. Experience told her that he would live through this but she kept her vigil until the sun peeked over the trees on the horizon, filling the room with warm morning light.

When Sherlock awoke she was gone along with every illicit substance he'd had in his possession. He stood perplexed in the middle of his room and appraised his empty cupboards. She'd quite literally cleaned him out. He had no idea how much time had passed. He remembered the confrontation with Roman and injecting himself with the speedball. He remembered falling down the stairs and her cold hand on his cheek but not much else. He examined the bloody scrape on his cheek; there were tiny bits of crushed gravel still stuck to it. He must have fallen face first onto the pavement outside but he couldn't quite recall how that had happened, or how she'd transported him home in the first place. Standing in front of the full-length mirror he was suddenly very aware of his nakedness, excepting the damp sheet he'd found draped over him. He realized that she must have carried him up to his room, and stripped him. But where were his clothes? He hazily recalled the shock of cold water splashing over him, or was that just a fever dream?

"Sherlock Holmes, you're a mess," he said pathetically to his reflection. The sound of a fist pounding against his door made him jump.

"Sherlock Holmes? Police! Open up!" a man shouted, his voice muffled behind the door. Sherlock wrapped himself in the flimsy sheet and opened the door with as much dignity as he could muster.

"What is this?" he asked, only faintly irritated, as three policemen pushed their way into his little room. They immediately began rummaging about in his cupboards, and Sherlock smirked with sudden clarity.

"It's a drugs bust," the Sergeant replied assuredly with his hands on his hips.

"A drugs bust," Sherlock repeated flatly. He watched the two Constables as they searched while the Sergeant appraised Sherlock in his makeshift toga.

"You _are_ Sherlock Holmes?" the Sergeant continued with a barely suppressed snicker.

"Guilty as charged," he said flippantly, cocking his head and grinning theatrically. "And you're Sgt. Lestrade," he carried on.

"And how did you know that?" Lestrade demanded, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Sherlock sighed dramatically and frowned at the older man. Clutching his improvised toga with his left hand he reached out with his right and tapped the Sergeant's nameplate, allowing his index finger to linger. Lestrade knitted his eyebrows together and looked down, and when he did Sherlock quickly dragged his finger up his chest a tapped him on his chin and his nose like he might have done in primary school with his more gullible classmates. Lestrade huffed and inclined his head in exasperation. "Really?" he said rhetorically, clearly unamused.

"It's clean," one of the Constables finally said. Lestrade scowled.

"Sorry to waste your time, Sergeant," Sherlock made an ironic apology and pulled open the door, anxious for the officers to leave. Lestrade motioned for the two constables to exit and then stood toe to toe with Sherlock.

"The Detective Inspector tells me you're typically on the right side of the law. If that's so, why am I here?" Lestrade questioned the younger man.

"I dare say we'll meet again, Sergeant. Probably sooner rather than later," Sherlock answered somewhat mysteriously. Lestrade squinted curiously at him but said nothing and made his exit leaving Sherlock alone in his room once again with more questions than answers. "The game is on," Sherlock said quietly to himself and let his sheet fall to the floor.


	3. Three: Violet

Three: Violet

She was a hard woman to find. Sherlock had managed to pull some fingerprints from his furniture but whoever she was, she wasn't in the system. He had then inquired at the club but of course she wasn't on the books and no one was giving anything up. He had even turned on the charm with one of the younger female bartenders and flashed his sexiest smile, his voice low and resonant as he asked about the courier.

"Fuck off," was all she said and then caught the attention of one of the well-muscled bouncers. Sherlock backed away from the much larger man with his hands up in surrender. He looked to the back of the club and saw Roman standing in the large office window overlooking the dance floor and the bar. He was languidly smoking a cigarette and watching the scene with great interest. Sherlock made eye contact and gave an impudent little wave to the man that had tried to kill him as he retreated towards the exit. Obviously this line of inquiry was going nowhere and he may have only succeeded in aggravating a violent thug who already had it in for him.

Next he turned to University records. He was confident that she was a student of the Faculty of Music. She would be on file somewhere, and attached to that file would be a photograph that had been taken sometime in the last few years for her identification card. All he had to do was gain access to these records and put a name to a face. Sherlock paid what he considered to be an extortionate amount of money for a student in the Department of Computer Science to hack into the University system and download their student files. It paid off though when after an hour of searching he found himself face to face with her again. _Violet Hunter. _She had an address off campus and no next of kin listed.

By the time he knocked on her door he had barely any more data about her than the first time he saw her. He knew her name, her age, her address, and her area of study. He knew she worked for Roman as a courier. He knew she drove a motorcycle. And he knew she'd saved his life. That was it. He was unable to glean anymore information from her records and found himself unable to draw many conclusions from the facts he did have. He stood on her threshold, inexplicably nervous, and waited for her to answer. He heard the soft padding of bare feet on the other side of the door as a shadow passed over the peephole. His breath caught in his throat as the heavy steel door slid open and she appeared before him like some kind of ethereal spirit bathed in white light from the fluorescent lamp in the hall.

"I wondered when you'd come knocking at my door," she said softly. She leaned in the doorframe clad in nothing but an oversized white shirt. She was as pale as sea foam, all milky white skin and silvery blond hair. Sherlock swallowed hard suddenly feeling very diminutive under her steely gaze. She matched him in height and he quickly realized that she would have no problem taking him on in a fight. But he didn't come here for anything like that; he only wanted to talk to her.

"Violet Hunter," he said finally.

"Sherlock Holmes," she replied. "Come in," she continued and stepped aside, inviting him to enter. He strode past her, pulling his scarf off as he went, and Violet pulled the heavy door shut and bolted it behind him. Looking around he observed that the flat was really just a large open space. In front of him there was a narrow row of hopper windows high up on the back wall letting in the feeble morning light, to his left something that could barely be called a kitchen, and to his right an open barn door that lead to an all-white bathroom. Right in the center of the room was a large mattress set on wooden pallets, covered by a rumpled duvet and feather pillows. There was a clothing rack beside it with not much on it and a full length mirror. There were no personal effects as far as he could tell; there were no pictures, no books, not even a sofa or a television. The flat was basically empty.

"It's fantastically Spartan," Sherlock declared as he appraised his surroundings. He started mindlessly shrugging off his coat and suddenly she was standing close behind him, her hands on his shoulders. She slowly peeled his coat off his body in a way that made him feel incredibly naked despite the fact that he was fully clothed. She hung it carelessly on a hook next to her leather jacket and went to the kitchen to attend to a whistling kettle. He followed her and she handed him a cup of tea, made just the way he liked it. _There's no way she could know that_, he reassured himself but it was enough to unnerve him.

"Go ahead," Violet said at last. "Ask me." Sherlock sipped his tea and peaked at her over the rim of his cup. She stood completely unselfconsciously in her creased white shirt, pinning him under her silvery gaze. She'd locked those cold eyes on him before and he didn't like the way it made him feel. She was the only woman he'd ever met that completely intimidated him.

"You saved my life," he said flatly.

"That's not a question," she retorted.

"Why did you save my life?" Sherlock demanded.

"If you had died it would have been very bad for us," Violet replied matter-of-factly.

"_Us_, meaning you and Roman?" Sherlock probed. He already knew the answer to his question. Violet remained silent and sipped her tea impassively, not breaking eye contact, not even blinking. Sherlock was feeling increasing unsettled. "Your boss tried to kill me," he stated sternly.

"He's not very subtle," Violet agreed, unmoved by his statement.

"You knew the police were coming," Sherlock continued. "You cleaned me out." Once again Violet remained taciturn and casually drank her tea, silently declining to comment. Sherlock sighed resignedly. "Why?" he challenged her, losing patience.

"If you had been arrested for drugs it would have been very bad for us," she replied, flatly echoing her earlier statement. "_Us_, meaning me and Roman," she added, mimicking Sherlock's own deliberate manner of speech. The understated mockery was not lost on him; he frowned and narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing. "Why are you here, Sherlock Holmes? To ask me questions you already know the answers to? To make statements not requiring further commentary?"

"You told Roman you didn't want to see anymore of me but you took me home and saved my life when you could've forgotten all about me," he said rapidly and unemotionally. "But do you see this scrape on my cheek?" he asked stepping closer to her than was absolutely necessary in order to show her the offending mark. "You didn't even bother with that. I don't think it was an oversight, you're much too observant for that."

"I told you, my actions were purely selfish. Who cares about a little scratch? The drugs in your body and in your room could have been traced back to Roman, and to me, and that couldn't happen," she explained coldly. "If you had died, you'd be evidence. If you had been arrested, you'd be a witness," she elaborated unfeelingly.

"Are you really as loyal to him as you appear to be," Sherlock asked not really expecting an answer.

"I need the money," she confided. "And the product. You're not the only one with predilections." With that she lit a cigarette from a carton on the counter and inhaled deeply with the threat of a smile on her lips. She exhaled and offered the cigarette to Sherlock who desperately wanted to decline but found he did not have the willpower to do so. "If he knew you were here right now he'd strangle you to death with his bare hands," she told him, her tiny smile turning into a smirk.

"He's the jealous type?" Sherlock queried handing back the cigarette.

"Of course he is. He has a terrible temper, a limited imagination, and absolutely no self-control. He gets into trouble and I get him out. He's a cliché. What did you expect?" Violet said incredulously. "You shouldn't have told him you were interested in me though," she added seriously. "Now he'll never leave you alone."

"Do you _belong_ to him?" Sherlock asked her with an unexpected hint of resentment in his voice.

"No," Violet answered stabbing out the cigarette, her expression returning to stony impassiveness. "But he thinks I lied to him. I told him you were indifferent."

"I am indifferent," Sherlock said quickly. "Why are you smiling?" he demanded when Violet's smirk returned.

"If you're so indifferent, why are you here?" she asked lightly. "You could have written off the whole experience and never given me a second thought. Why go through so much effort to find me? Why come here and question me when you already have all the answers? And why make it clear to Roman that you are alive and well, and looking for me?"

"I'm not afraid of him," Sherlock said boldly. Violet's smirk faded and she fixed her icy gaze on him.

"You should be."


End file.
